There is more to the National Lottery than meets the eye. Its workings are intricate. Undoubtedly, while huge jackpots and millionaire lifestyles grab people’s attention and stimulate interest, knowing more about what goes on behind the scenes is likely to lead to play that is better informed.

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

Introduction

I have been fascinated by the UK National Lottery since it began in November 1994. It has become an obsession, but there is more to the lottery than games that win large sums of money.

My interest lies in the following:

• its origins;
• its history;
• its popularity;
• the underlying mathematics;
• its social impact – enriching lucky winners and funding good causes;
• its efficiency;
• legislation and prohibition;
• how to improve outcomes while playing.

Did you know that …?

• Modern lotteries began in the Low Countries in the fifteenth century. They became established as a reliable way of raising large sums of money for fortifications and public projects, supplementing taxation.
  See Early lotteries in the Low Countries.
• President Thomas Jefferson (1801-9) thought lotteries benefited society. One of his successors, Benjamin Harrison (1889-93), did not. By 1895, lotteries were banned in the USA following instances of scandal and corruption.
• The renowned Ivy League universities of Harvard, Princeton and Yale, were notable beneficiaries of lotteries. 
• There were lotteries in England between 1567 and 1826. Many of them were run by the state. Some helped pay for Westminster Bridge in London in 1750, while others founded the British Museum, with the House of Commons Speaker, the Lord Chancellor and the Archbishop of Canterbury as trustees to add integrity.
• Although you have one chance in 45,057,474 of winning the Lotto jackpot, more than 100 have won since October 2015.

If you want answers to these and other similar questions, consult the resources below. You will be amazed. I curated them while gathering material for a book.

Websites

Be careful when you frame a search query using Google about the National Lottery, or lotteries in general, for that matter. e.g. terms like “how can I win the lottery?”.

Unwittingly, you may receive a deluge of unwanted results inviting you to participate in numerous get-rich-quick schemes. Take it from me; no such system exists to guarantee you riches!

Websites worth visiting fall into two broad categories, requiring a login account, or not.

I only have an account with the official site so that I can buy tickets and receive any prize money due.

1. The official website

Camelot operates the official National Lottery website.

I hold an account and use it regularly to buy tickets online and view the results of draws made up to 180 days ago.

The website offers the following:

• Games to play;
• Results covering the past 180 days;
• Helpful information about how to play games and claim prizes. Account holders like me receive emails if they win, and Camelot pays winnings directly into their bank accounts.
• There are features about big winners, unclaimed prizes, good causes and more general news about the National Lottery.
• You can watch recordings of the draws that have taken place.

2. Merseyworld Lottery

Although it is an unofficial website, The UK National Lottery on Merseyworld is always my second port of call for reliable and comprehensive information and commentary. All historical results are available from 1994, when the National Lottery began.

The website covers a lot of ground apart from the results, with much background information and a long-standing wheeling challenge.

I highly recommend it!

3. €uro-Millions.com

I use €uro-Millions.com primarily to follow the Euromillions game across participating countries. i.e. UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg.

Full results go back to the beginning of 2004, with information about supplementary games like UK Millionaire Maker.

I visit this site often and regard it highly.

4. Plus magazine

Running a lottery, for beginners

John Haigh, a reader in mathematics and statistics at a leading British university, considers how you might devise a lottery from first principles.

He offers insights on how the enterprise might make money to sustain itself and support its good causes while encouraging players to participate over the long term.

Well worth reading, in my opinion!

UK National lottery – a guide for beginners

In another article, John Haigh considers the National Lottery in particular in its earlier version when it used 49 balls.

• Do hot tips work when choosing your numbers?
• Are draws random?
• How to win more.
• Don’t forget the smaller prizes.
• How to win more than average.

Another thought-provoking and exciting discussion!

5. Personal blog – Could It Be You?

I have a WordPress website and blog about the National Lottery. You are reading it now!

Although in its infancy, it will cover the subjects I outlined in the Introduction earlier as it matures.

So far, the posts relate to the early modern lotteries in the Low Countries between 1400 and 1600; also, the state of East-West trade to 1600, and four ways to win a large jackpot on the National Lottery.

• Early lotteries in the Low Countries
• An Early History of East-West Trade to 1600
• 4 ways to win a large jackpot on the National Lottery.

Later posts will be about the underlying mathematics and how you might develop a system to play more effectively, given modest expenditure – in other words, getting the best outcome for your stake.

Books

1. It Could Be You

Raymond Snoddy & Jon Ashworth, It Could Be You – The Untold Story of the UK National
Lottery, Faber and Faber (2000) – ISBN 0571200877

The book tells the story of how the National Lottery came into being. It shows how earlier lotteries between 1567 and 1826 became mired in scandal and corruption and fell out of favour for more than 150 years.

In the last century, Government funding for the arts had long been inadequate. There were always more urgent and persistent demands on the public purse. The search for funding to supplement taxation led to the resurgence of a modern state-run lottery, despite prolonged opposition and antipathy toward all forms of gambling.

The authors describe the political backdrop, the players and prominent figures. They show how messy arguments, computers and modern communications technology combined to provide a viable solution that has lasted more than a quarter of a century.

Large sums of money have changed hands frequently. The National Lottery enterprise has benefitted good causes that would otherwise not have received such largesse and created thousands of millionaires.

2. A History of English Lotteries

John Ashton, A History of English Lotteries – now for the first time written, Leadenhall Press (1893)

This classic work, published now as a part of the Cornell University Library Digital Collection, traces the history of English lotteries from the reign of Elizabeth I in 1569 – private and state-run.

Illustrated with line drawings, it gives examples in considerable detail of prizes and draws. It tells of instances of forgery, counterfeiting, fraud, desperation, debt, suicide and prosecution.

Promoters were inventive.

Prizes included cash, gold and silverware, houses, and fine art. Enterprising lottery agents began to sell and promote tickets using printed notices and handbills to advertise them. Poems and popular songs helped spread the word to the illiterate who might buy tickets.

The final lottery in 1826 even had an epitaph.

3. Fate’s Bookie

Gary Hicks, Fate’s Bookie – How the Lottery Shaped the World, The History Press (2009) – ISBN 9780750949729

This book takes a grand tour of lotteries through time and place from ancient times in Greece, Imperial Rome and Mesopotamia to the present day, via Elizabethan England and the state of Virginia at the time of James I.

It looks at some extraordinary people involved, such as Queen Elizabeth I, Casanova, President George Washington and William Wilberforce.

Despite their association with corruption, greed and fraud, lotteries have helped governments to raise colossal sums of money for the public good.

4. The Mathematics of Lottery

Catalin Barboianu, The Mathematics of Lottery – Odds, Combinations, Systems, Infrarom Publishing (2009) – ISBN 9789731991115

The book describes the mathematics of lotteries and discusses strategies for playing. The author presents detailed and complex arguments. Therefore, the reader needs to be proficient in mathematics to appreciate this book. I found it difficult to read in places; it is not for the faint-hearted!

5. The Lure of Lady Luck

The Lure of Lady Luck: Lotteries and Economic Culture in the Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Low Countries by Jeroen Puttevils forms a section of a larger volume, Random Riches: Gambling Past & Present, ed. Manfred Zollinger (2016) – ISBN 9781472470041

The author describes how political and economic changes in the Low Countries led to the development of widespread lotteries. The lotteries funded reconstruction, other public projects, and relief for the poor during turbulent times. Operated by the state and other organisations, they matured into big businesses, generating large sums to supplement taxes. They set a working pattern for their present-day equivalents without the assistance of modern technology that is available now.

6. Lottery Winning Systems

Gail Howard, Lottery Winning Systems, Smart Luck Publishers (5th edition, 2007) – ISBN 9780945760863

This book is available in print and as an Amazon Kindle edition.

The aim is to get a minimum guaranteed return if you pick some of the numbers drawn using her wheeling methods, giving your winnings a welcome boost. However, they gobble lots of money and are no panacea since winning is still unlikely. However, the outcomes tend to be better if you do.

Gail Howard, who died in 2015, pioneered the development of strategies to win lotteries and ran her Smart Luck business to sell her systems and books. She had travelled a lot and was a successful stockbroker and commodities trader before applying her knowledge of risk to lotteries.

Other Books

There are many other books in a similar vein to Gail Howard’s. Some contain fanciful notions; others are more serious, with a grain of truth underpinning them.

The truth is that most methods that try to win the lottery fail to deliver the results to which they aspire so much.

The problem is complicated and may not be soluble practically, reliably or economically. In my book, that makes it enticing.

Winning the lottery is a worthy challenge indeed.

Conclusion

I compiled this list of books and websites while researching material for a book.

They should serve as an excellent resource for anyone interested in furthering their knowledge about the UK National Lottery and how it works.

As a result, play will become more informed.

Revision date: 19 March 2023